


One Hundred Years of Solitude

by TheLillie



Series: Trans-Galactic Cell Service [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, No Plot/Plotless, Random & Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 17:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15954566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLillie/pseuds/TheLillie
Summary: Still Padparadscha was silent. Lars drooped his head, then turned away. It was gonna take a little while for her to respond anyway, and...maybe she didn’t want to respond. Maybe she was gonna stay mad at him forever. She had the right to–he knew he’d yelled over a touchy subject.“I’m always lonely, actually.”Lars looked up. “Huh?”





	One Hundred Years of Solitude

**Author's Note:**

> [What are the most compelling cultural references to loneliness?](https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-compelling-cultural-references-to-loneliness/answer/George-Hagstrom#)  
>  "The book _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one such book. Almost all of the main characters have to deal with great solitude/loneliness throughout the course of the novel, and one of the themes of the book is how this solitude effects them and the others around them (in both good ways and completely tragic and heartbreaking ways). It is a beautiful book which deals with human nature and the nature of history as well as solitude.
> 
> One thing I will point out is that the loneliness/solitude found in this book is derived from a completely different cause then modern day loneliness, which I think comes from the fact that we move around so much (leaving behind our families and our close friends). None of the characters in the book have to deal with that, their loneliness is either self-imposed or due to some strange external factors... In some ways this made it more tragic to read the book since it made it seem to easy for the characters to escape their solitude."  
> -George Hagstrom

Lars flicked his tongue at the sandwich. It wasn't stale or rotten or anything–Steven had only brought it a few hours ago–but something about it was just...wrong. More than the fact that he just wasn't hungry.

Maybe everything just felt wrong now. Maybe that was the biggest side effect of his undeadness: he couldn't ever feel anything normal anymore. And maybe that was why he was feeling so extra guilty about–

He frowned and tried taking a bite out of the sandwich. 

Immediately he let it fall back out of his mouth.

“Blehh.” 

There was a giggle beside him. “Are all Larses so funny?”

Lars recoiled at first, startled by the sudden presence, but then relaxed. The Rutile twins.

“Dunno,” he shrugged, brushing the rejected bite off his shirt. “I didn't really think I was that funny.”

One of the twins–he'd taken to calling them Lefty and Righty, at least in his head–giggled again and mimicked him spitting out his food. “Blehh.”

“Bleehhh!” Righty copied.

Lars chuckled and handed Lefty the rest of the sandwich. “Well, here, if you wanna make fun of me more authentically.”

She eagerly tore the sandwich in half, then the twins both bit and spit in unison. “Bleheheh!”

“Psh.” Lars rolled his eyes good-naturedly, and decided to be grateful for another side effect of zombiehood: his permanent pinkness made it impossible for people to notice him blushing. “You guys are weird.”

“That's off-colors for you,” Righty said cheerfully. “We're as weird as it gets.”

“Yeah, I've got a friend who’d love you.”

And now Lars was off-color, too. Just as weird as the rest of them. Probably a lot weirder, by their standards. Could weirdness be quantified like that? Like, was there a scale?

Ronaldo would probably have a scale. Lars leaned back, trying to picture a spectrum. On one end was something normal, like–like Sadie, and on the other end was probably Fluorite, and everyone else here was somewhere in between. But where did a pair of conjoined twins who liked to pass the time spitting out sandwiches measure up against the pink zombie kid who gave them the sandwiches? Or where did a four-armed four-eyed nervous wreck measure against a three-foot-tall peach princess with the processing speed of a computer from the eighties?

Oh, wait. Lars bent his knees up to his chest. He just remembered that he's trying not to think about the little peach princess.

The twins noticed the mood drop and paused in their chewing. Lefty stuck out her tongue, but Righty swallowed.

“Are you alright?” Righty asked.

Lars glanced up at the ceiling of the hole he was sitting in; not to look at the ceiling itself, but as if he could see past it to another hole far above. 

“Is Padparadscha alright?”

The twins followed his gaze and stepped back. Both faces were solemn now.

“It doesn't look like she's moved since she went up there,” said Lefty.

“It's strange,” said Righty. “She's never spent this long in her hole before.”

“At least, not since she first came out.”

“That is true.”

Lars raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, 'came out’?”

“This is the Delta Corundum Kindergarten,” Lefty explained. “It’s where Padparadscha was made.”

Righty nodded. “That hole up there is where she first popped out of the ground.”

“Wait, these holes are like...what you’re born out of?”

The twins shrugged. Lars didn’t take the time to consider the further implications of that.

“The last time we were hiding around here, she tried to avoid her hole as much as she could.”

“She never went near it. Something must have really upset her now.”

Lars slumped lower. “Yeah. I'll say.”

For a moment he was silent, but then sensed that he still had an audience. He peeked over. The twins had both heads resting on crossed arms, and all eyes were wide.

“What, you want me to give you the whole story?”

“Rhodonite doesn't know and Fluorite won't tell us,” both twins said quickly.

Lars sighed and turned his head away. “It’s my fault she's upset. I–I snapped at her after Steven left.” He hugged his legs closer to his body. “It's just that–he was a little stressed out, and that made me stressed out, and I started getting really grouchy–”

_ “I need to get back–” _

_ “What, you're just gonna drop lunch and leave? C'mon, this is the first human interaction I've had in, like...a long time.” _

_ “I know, but–things are a little crazy back home, and Connie's gonna be here for training soon–” _

_ “Well, then, why can't you bring Connie over here to train? Real-life application, right?” _

_ “I can't bring Connie here!  It's way too dangerous!” _

_ “But not too dangerous for me?” _

_ “It is too dangerous for you! You literally died!” _

“–we just got into an argument–”

_ “And guess whose fault that is!” _

“–and then after he stormed off back into my head, Pad popped up and said something and–”

_ “Oh! Be careful, Lars! I predict that this visit will cause you some distress!” _

_ “Oh, you think?! I'm already distressed! Your stupid prediction just happened! Stop announcing everything like it's some great revelation when everyone already knows it's useless!” _

“–I kinda flipped my lid.”

The twins frowned.

“Did you apologize?” asked Lefty.

“Well–” Lars started to sit up, instinctively defensive, but quickly went back to slouching. “No.”

“You should do that.”

His lips tightened a little. “I don’t know. She probably doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“You won’t know until you try.”

“Trying can’t harm anything.”

“Okay, okay,” he surrendered, throwing up his hands. “I’ll apologize if it’ll make you guys quit staring at me.”

The twins stepped back from the wall so Lars could climb out of the hole. Instead of dropping to the ground, though, he grabbed the edge of the hole above him and used it to turn around and look up at where Padparadscha had gone after the argument.

She was a ways upward, and a little to the right. He could just barely make out some orangey-pink among the bluish-gray.

He took a deep breath. “Good thing rock climbing’s the one sports thing I’m decent at.”

It wasn’t an extremely strenuous climb–the little Pad-sized silhouettes made surprisingly good hand- and footholds–but it was enough for him to be fairly winded by the time he was almost at his destination. He stopped in the hole right below Padparadscha, panting.

“Hey, are you–” he called up to her, but then cut himself off. “What the–”

Huh. Padparadscha’s hole was upside down. All the other ones looked like little snowmen, with a smaller curve for the head on top of a bigger one for the body, but this one had the head on the bottom.

Padparadscha was right side up, though, standing at the back of the hole. It looked like a bit of an awkward fit–her skirts were bunched up, and her arms were crowded close to her shoulders as she held her hands to her head.

Was this why her predicting was weird? Just because she came out of the ground upside down?

No, that was a question for another time. Right now was about...apologizing. Lars hefted himself up into the hole, sitting with his back to Padparadscha and his legs hanging over the edge.

“Hey, um–” he started, turning his head as much as he could to look at her. “I’m really sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have blown up like that.”

She didn’t move.

“I don’t really have an excuse,” he said. “I’m just–I’m sorry. You don’t have to forgive me. I know I was kinda really a jerk, so...you can stay mad at me if you want.” 

Still Padparadscha was silent. Lars drooped his head, then turned away. It was gonna take a little while for her to respond anyway, and...maybe she didn’t want to respond. Maybe she was gonna stay mad at him forever. She had the right to–he knew he’d yelled over a touchy subject.

“I’m always lonely, actually.”

Lars looked up. “Huh?”

Padparadscha lowered her hands from her head and placed them in her lap, left over right, covering her gem.

“It’s easy to be lonely in this group. Rhodonite and Fluorite have themselves and the twins have each other, and I’m just me. But even without that, I’m lonely.” She sighed. “I know I’m slow. I know I’m always a step behind, and I know everyone tries their best to wait for me, and everyone tries to let me keep up, but–I know someday eventually everyone’s going to move on without me. They always do.”

“Hm.” Lars looked down over his dangling feet. “I know a little bit about how that feels. But I guess stuff like grades and college and falling in love shouldn’t matter to me anymore. What with...everything about this.”

“I’m sorry I seem so useless,” Padparadscha said, turning to him. “Sapphires are made to announce what we see. I always try to do my best, even if it doesn’t matter. If I just keep smiling and just keep trying, things are sure to work out!” Her cheerfulness faded as quickly as it had arrived. “But that doesn’t change how it really feels.”

Lars didn’t respond. He hunched his shoulders, bent his knees, and waited for Padparadscha to catch up.

He’d honestly never considered how she really felt about all this. She’d been doing an awfully good job of keep-trying-and-keep-smiling. It was kinda really inspiring, actually. Reminded him of Steven a lot. Always keeping on a brave face, like nothing mattered and everything was fine all the time.

He was gonna have to apologize to Steven, too, after all of this.

Padparadscha gasped softly, hands rising to her lips. “Oh! I’m sorry. That question was from a very long time ago, wasn’t it? And it wasn’t meant for me.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Lars shrugged. “Let me know when you’re caught up.”

“Oh.” She lowered her hands. “Oh–thank you.”

One corner of his mouth tugged up. Not quite a smile, but far from a frown.

“Lars?”

“Hm?”

“I think I’m caught up now,” Padparadscha said, shifting to face him a little more and adjusting her skirts. “And...I predict that I’m going to forgive you.”

Now he really smiled. “Thanks.”

Padparadscha smiled back, a full-faced bright-toothed grin.

“Uh–what question were you answering earlier?” Lars asked.

After a moment, Padparadscha replied, “Well. I was trying to look into the future before you came up, to see if I could...fix things. But I suppose I was just looking further into the past. I saw you–it must have been on Earth–speaking to someone. Someone you clearly loved very much.”

Lars’s heart clenched. Who had she seen him talking to? There weren’t many people he could honestly say he loved, and he really didn’t show it clearly to any of them.

“You asked if they ever get lonely, even when they’re around people.”

Oh.

Yeah.

“Was it really that obvious?” he asked, embarrassed. “That I…”

He trailed off. He still couldn’t bring himself to say it, even on an alien planet a universe away from everyone he knew, everyone who could possibly care. Even after  _ dying _ , he couldn’t say it. He was literally less scared of death than of admitting his feelings.

Well. Maybe that’s just how it was to be a teenager.

“I may not see things at the right time,” Padparadscha laughed, “but I do see things others might miss.”

“Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing we keep you around,” Lars joked, lightly shoving Padparadscha’s shoulder. “No way this crew’s letting you get left behind.”

Padparadscha’s laugh faded to something smaller, but surer. “Yes. I don’t think I need Future Vision to see that’s true.”

**Author's Note:**

> the title's also fitting cus this took me one hundred years to write. i literally started it shortly after off colors/lars' head etc aired and didn't finish it until just now. rip


End file.
